One-fifth of the population in the US speaks a language other than English or Spanish. This blog post will outline what those languages are and how they break down by state. Some states might be more diverse than others, but this is an interesting topic to explore!
As of the 2019 US census, a total of 22% of the US speaks a foreign language with 14% speaking good English. That leaves about 8% of the United States population in a category considered limited-English proficient. A person is considered "limited-English proficient", or LEP for short, when they speak a language other than English at home but aren't fluent enough to read, write or speak English well enough to be understood by someone who doesn't speak that language. 25.1 million Americans fall into this category. CIT is called often to assist in parent teacher meetings to court proceedings in need of a professional interpreter for these type of speaking individuals.
While most statistics (only 12%) indicate that Spanish is still not the most spoken language in the US, this may one day change with the United States open border policies in constant flux; there are already nine states where more than 10% of residents speak Spanish at home (including California which reports that 38% of its large population speaks Spanish).
There are about 37 million Hispanic-Americans who speak Spanish most often at home, which accounts for 92% of that demographic (34.5 million).
All throughout Central America, South America, and Mexico immigrants have brought their culture with them to maintain their traditions even if they're far away from home. Many Latino families believe it is important to keep their culture alive so they pass these beliefs on to younger generations.
In some cases, Latino parents speak Spanish most of the time with their children so they can learn this new language and reconnect with their culture.
Coming in at number three for most spoken languages in the US is Chinese with a 2% share of the most popular languages. A total of 2.8 to 2.9 million Asian-Americans speak languages CIT translates often. They are Cantonese and Mandarin.
It is up among non-native speakers from 1.5 million speakers since 2009 (400,000), while Korean has 1.4 million speakers (up 100,000).
In addition to Asian-Americans who have immigrated from China, there are also many Americans who have been raised in an English speaking household, but their parent(s) or grandparent(s) came from a non-English speaking country and taught children how to speak this most used/spoken language at home so they could connect with relatives that might be visiting them or just because it was the most accessible means to communicate.
With immigration on the rise, these numbers may shift soon; what do you think will be most popular after English? Will it be Spanish or another language like Mandarin or French? As more people immigrate to America for work or school, we can expect to hear more languages being spoken throughout our diverse country.
Tagalog is most commonly spoken in the western region of the US, while French most commonly appears in New England. Arabic in West Virginia? Who knew?
Chinese most commonly appears on both coasts (with most speakers found on the west coast), and Spanish most notably appears along the southwestern borders with Mexico.
The data and infographics in this article are carefully organized and verified by multiple CIT team members. We translate in over 200 languages, and that includes sign languages and ASL.
We take great pride in our efficiency and accuracy. If you find our professionalism appealing, call us when you need a dedicated team at affordable rates.
No matter what your needs may be, we can and are ready to assist you now. We have translators and interpreters standing by 24/7.
CIT's interpreter is such a rockstar, and it’s so great to have him as a lead interpreter for our Board meetings. About Our Interpreters 
Thank you for always being able to handle emergency interpreting assignments with ease. About Urgent Requests
Thank you for always being able to handle emergency interpreting assignments with ease. About Urgent Requests
Your translation rates are more competitive than other language service providers I used in the past. About Pricing
Professionalism matters at CIT. We respond to request inside 24 hours.
